Elemental Assassin 02 - Web of Lies

knives tucked up my sleeve. I glanced at the name on the card. Violet Fox . I swiped Every assassin has a moniker, a discreet name they go by the card through the machine and passed the girl the to ply their services and perhaps give potential custompaper slip to sign. Her cursive was a loopy, feminine swirl. ers a clue as to how they operate or off their victims. Tin I tucked the slip under the corner of the battered cash Man had been Fletcher’s name because he’d never let his register and gave her my standard, y’all-please-come-back heart, his emotions, get in the way of a job. But once he’d smile. “Have a nice day.”
    taken me under his wing and started training me to be an Estep_Web of Lies_1P EP.indd 56-57
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    58 JENNIFER ESTEP
    Web of Lies 59
    assassin, the old man had cut back on his own jobs and The girl, Violet, forced out a smile that wilted under eventually retired from the business altogether. Nobody my cold gray gaze. “Yeah, that’s what I thought too.”
    had asked for the Tin Man in a long, long time.
    “There’s nobody here by that name. No old man, either.”
    Except this girl.
    Not anymore.
    For the first time, I really looked at her. Girl probably out of sight below the counter, my thumb traced over wasn’t the right term for her. With her ample breasts, wide the hilt of the silverstone knife that I’d palmed. Violet Fox hips, and curved booty, she was a full-grown woman. Still might look about as dangerous as a wet kitten, but that young, though. Eighteen, maybe nineteen. She probably didn’t mean she wasn’t working for someone else. Maybe thought she was twenty pounds too heavy, but the extra someone who wanted to hire the mysterious Tin Man. weight rounded her face and filled out her chest. Someone looking for revenge. or maybe even the cops. Square black glasses gave her a slightly brainy air. Her Didn’t much matter who. If the girl breathed wrong, she sandy blond hair was cropped short, and the rain outside was going to die where she stood.
    had turned it into a mound of frizz. Her dark brown eyes Violet chewed her lower lip. For a moment, I thought and pecan-colored skin whispered of some Hispanic or she might ask me about Fletcher again. But after a momaybe even Native American heritage. The Cherokee still ment, her shoulders drooped in defeat.
    inhabited the mountains around Ashland, and more His“Doesn’t matter,” she said in a tired voice. “He couldn’t panic folks came to the city every summer to pick strawberhave helped me anyway. Sorry to bother you.”
    ries, tomatoes, and other crops. once the picking season She turned to go. I glanced at Finn, who shrugged. He was over, lots of the migrants stayed and put down roots. didn’t know what to make of it either. Sophia grunted I continued my examination. She wore jeans faded and turned back to her celery.
    from wear, not design, and a heavy black turtleneck
    “He couldn’t have helped you with what?” I called out. sweater that made her eyes seem darker than they were. Curiosity. Something the old man had instilled in Scuffed sneakers, a heavy jacket, some silver hoops in her me over the years. Fletcher Lane had always wanted to ears. Nothing on her cost more than fifty bucks. Which know everything about everyone, and he’d taught me to didn’t inspire confidence about her even being able to afbe the same way. Now it was the one emotion that always ford an assassin like the Tin Man.
    seemed to get the best of me, no matter how hard I tried The words Tin Man had also gotten the others’ atto squash it. tention. Finn peered at the girl over the top of the finanThe girl, Violet, turned to look at me. “oh, um, well, cial section. Sophia looked up from the celery she’d been it’s sort of personal—”
    chopping for her macaroni salad.
    That’s all she got out before someone started shooting
    “Tin Man?” I asked. “That’s a funny name.”
    at us.
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    Web of Lies 61
    Sophia stood by the back counter and kept chopping celery. She didn’t even look up at the crack of the gunshot. Bullets didn’t worry her. Dwarves were even tougher 5
    than giants, and Sophia could take a couple bullets in the back. They’d catch her in hard muscles long before they hit anything vital. Elemental magic was just about the only thing that could quickly penetrate a dwarf’s thick skin. And even the majority of that would only make her angry, instead